Intended to a thread concerning Jesus oddities and merchandise and quasi-factoids and like that. I've been trying to get back in touch with my southernness lately, and I'm hoping gettin' Jesus-ey will help.

Jesus Bumper Sticker of the Month, kind of a play on the What Would Jesus Do bracelets:

Who Would Jesus Bomb?

MarcL

Posted on Tuesday, July 06, 2004 - 11:02 pm:

My favorite wristlet:

wtfwjd?

Also, I had a movie title running thru my head today for some reason (I think it had to do with a bumper sticker): Jesus, Swordsman of Galilee!

MarcL

Posted on Tuesday, July 06, 2004 - 11:12 pm:

Now I remember why I was thinking about this. Because I had "Jesus Loves Me" by "Baby Lu-Lu" running through my head this afternoon, after having spent a bit of time here yesterday:

(Scroll down to "Terrifying Christian Recordings." Should keep you busy for a while.)

And that was making me think about that line from Matthew: "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword." And I was wondering what might be done with that sword in relation to Lu-Lu.

Lucius

Posted on Wednesday, July 07, 2004 - 05:39 am:

Yeah, that's a little frightening. Who'd ever think there'd be a song called "The Monkey Song/The Ecumenical Moment," sung by the "Very young Crystal Bernard..."

Far outstrips for eccentricity, though not for quality, the Louvin Bros. "Thank You, Dear God, For Victory in Korea..."

This fits in well with JESUS, SWORDSMAN OF GALILLEE.... Me, I like the Pope and God Almighty figures, too....

Dave G.

Posted on Wednesday, July 07, 2004 - 06:32 am:

I've always been fascinated by Jesus/Mary apparitions (Jesus in a tortilla, etc.). It amazes me that nobody has done a coffee book entitled THE BIG BOOK OF CHRISTIAN APPARITIONS. It would be fasinating as all he..., er, I mean, heck. Anyone know a good apparition website?

Lucius, I have also always thought that the Second Coming would be an amazing subject for a screenplay, and not LEFT BEHIND either. Imagine if a long-haired Middle Eastern radical character preaching about "the sword" and the Day of Reckoning showed up on the streets of New York under the reign of the Ashcroft Justice Department? JESUS OF GUANTANAMO BAY. I can see it now. The Greatest Story Never Told, but for the intervention of the Freedom of Information Act. Michael Moore meets Cecil B. DeMille...

Did anyone see that news story a few years ago about the guy in Western Pennsylvania dressed in Jesus robes, walking and preaching throughout economically-depressed Western PA? He apparently caused quite a stir...

Lucius

Posted on Wednesday, July 07, 2004 - 06:44 am:

I think the Second Coming would be a tough sell in Hwood, even after The Passion, And if you could get it made, you'd have to do the MOR good Christian version of it. As an Indy film you could do it....but would it fly? Mmmm. Maybe...

Don't know an apparitions site. Anyone...?

More later...

Dave G.

Posted on Wednesday, July 07, 2004 - 06:56 am:

I think the REAL Second Coming would make a great comedy. Imagine the scenes:

Jesus invited to a Mel Gibson script reading, which he continually interrupts with historical corrections, only to be shouted down by Hollywood types ("Jesus, baby, every story needs a villain!");

Jesus invited as a "guest speaker" to a local Baptist church, only to be run out of town after he gives all the food for the Baptist fried chicken supper to local homeless people;

TSA interrogators flummoxed by the mysterious passenger's complete lack of luggage or carry-ons frantically searching to find "Nazareth" and "Galilee" in a Rand McNally atlas during an airport questioning session;

The Justice Department desperately trying to get wiretap authority on Jesus' phone (he has none), subpoena authority over his bank accounts (nope), and a search warrant for his residence (strike three);

Jesus arrested for disturbing the peace after launching an impromptu sermon outside a "megachurch" meeting at the New Orleans Superdome.

The comic possibilities abound. You could call it "WWJD"...

Lucius

Posted on Wednesday, July 07, 2004 - 07:23 am:

The problem's not in concept but in marketing and distribution. In one of Bob Sheckley's books, Dimension of Miracles, Jesus lives in an asylyum, a circlet of flies forming a halo over his head. Kind of like your scenario. There was a novel about the second coming, a clone Jesus from Shroud of Turin DNA...

Dave G.

Posted on Wednesday, July 07, 2004 - 08:03 am:

Those both sound interesting, but neither one sounds like a laff riot. It could work if it was marketed as an irreverent comedy. Paris Hilton as a trailer park hottie who plays Mary Magdelene at the local Jesus theme park and becomes romantically drawn to the new rebel in town. Dave Chappelle as Judas, who sells out JC to get a better deal on a pot bust. I see James Franco as Jesus...

The marlketing aspects would be nightmarish however you mounted it. Theater owners would be loathe to show the film. And they wouldn't have any moral force on their side as they do with the Moore film. My feeling, it would be limited to the smallest of houses, repertoire houses with 50-100 seats. No studio would greenlight such a project and indie people couldn't swing the money unless they had some promise of distribution. So you're talking about a SERIOUSLY low budget film. Distributors would be so paranoid, especially in light of the 630 million generated by the PASSION, they wouldn't take a chance.

Dave G.

Posted on Wednesday, July 07, 2004 - 08:39 am:

Awwww, you're no fun anymore.

Lucius

Posted on Wednesday, July 07, 2004 - 08:45 am:

Well, you could do some media thing. A book, a play, something like that. And if it caught on, got some notoriety, then a movie might fly...

Dave G.

Posted on Wednesday, July 07, 2004 - 10:31 am:

It would be the new J.C. Superstar, I tells ya. We could do it as a musical...

Lucius

Posted on Wednesday, July 07, 2004 - 10:43 am:

Off off Broadway....

Actualy, I'm more interested in an Iraq occupation musical...I have this recurring dream of a chorus line of dancing terrorist guys in those shawls and ski masks, and have already written lyrics and melody to one song, "Roller Babes of Baghdad..."

Where in the hell is Judea? Where in the hell can it be? With satellites mapping out the Middle East How could we lose the Sea of Galilee? The CIA has lost Arimathea Nobody there has seen Cyrene And Bush thinks Nazareth is just a metal band That opened in New Haven once for Queen!

Where in the hell is Judea Where in the hell can it be? We've x-rayed every inch of ground for oil fields How could we lose a whole society? We know that there's a road to Damascus So we take his story Syria-s-ly But with no passport in his cloak This guy's a threat and that's no joke So he's the problem of N-Y-P-D We checked his sandals for a fuse And his breath and blood for booze Now we'll hand him to N-Y-Pee-Deeeeeee....

And if Who would Jesus Bomb is something you want to add to your wardrobe, google Northern Sun -- they have a very fetching shirt complete with litte Christian fish symbol bombs....

MarcL

Posted on Wednesday, July 07, 2004 - 04:13 pm:

That's awesome, Hammuel! I tell ya, I missed a career in marketing crap.

The best bumper sticker I've seen in a couple days: GEORGE W. BUSH IS A LYING SACK OF SHIT. It was fun explaining that to the kids.

MarcL

Posted on Wednesday, July 07, 2004 - 04:14 pm:

That slogan is of course especially for Christian gamers.

GG!

Lucius

Posted on Wednesday, July 07, 2004 - 08:10 pm:

Tabloid news of J...

"According to a new translation of an ancient scroll, Jesus Christ was the super-macho captain of his high school team and a world class pole vaulter. In vaulting competitions, he soared to record heights without benefit of a pole, simply floating to victory. At swim meets, he raced to wins by racing at lightning speeds, presaging his Biblical miracle by 16 years.

"'This scroll indicates the Messiah was an athlete of unique ability,' says Dr. Rufus Crenshaw, who discovered the scroll at an archaeological dig near Jerusalem in 1968. 'Judging by illustrations on the scroll, Christ won hundreds of blue ribbons and first place trophies, often to the chagrin of his own teammates.'

"The scroll also suggests that for all his abilities, Christ was in many ways normal. Like any other teenage athlete, his sports sandals 'stinketh to high heaven.'

"Jesus' earthly parents, Joseph and the Virgin Mary, embarrassed Jesus by engaging in what the scroll calls 'overzealous support.'

"'They seem to have delighted in catcalling and razzing other parents about their Son's gifts,' says Crenshaw of Capetown, South Africa....

>>Actualy, I'm more interested in an Iraq occupation musical...I have this recurring dream of a chorus line of dancing terrorist guys in those shawls and ski masks, and have already written lyrics and melody to one song, "Roller Babes of Baghdad..."<<

Hey Lucius, if you haven't caught Tony Kushner's new play, "Homebody/Kabul," you really should check it out. Not quite the "Hitler for Springtime," type of theatre production you imagined above, but . . .

Lucius

Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2004 - 08:04 am:

Thanks, Joseph....I'll look on the net. Where I live, we're not likely to get anything more aventurous theatre-wise than a touring company of the Music Man.

Bob Urell

Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2004 - 11:22 am:

What are you talking about, Lucius! I hear that Washougal High is putting on a spirited rendition of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat. I bought you a ticket, it came with a bass pole. I think Tanya Harding's going to be there. I know how you like Tanya and her big ass truck and that hubcap trick she does....

Lucius

Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2004 - 11:50 am:

That's Tonya, Urell. If she's there, I'm there. I'm a fan.....

Bob Urell

Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2004 - 08:51 pm:

Oh, hell, Lucius. SHE can't spell it. Why should I know how?

Lucius

Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2004 - 08:58 pm:

You should learn the name of Tonya -- she's our Courtney Love!

Lucius

Posted on Thursday, July 08, 2004 - 09:01 pm:

And speaking of Jesus --- anybody seen those little plaster cast deals, the ones that show the Savior in his robes, playing football with a couple of little kids, handing off to one of them? That's a primo item in my book....Top Quality Jesus mechandising.

Dave G.

Posted on Friday, July 09, 2004 - 06:19 am:

I prefer the Mel Gibson cross-nail necklaces. That, to me, is far beyond any kind of boundary of good taste that it should win a prize. Could you imagine what would have happened if they sold "Hinckley bullet" necklaces? But replicas of Calvary cross-nails are OK? Man, even for a non-practicing Catholic that strikes me as pretty f***ed.

Wait, so let me get this straight. There are six Christian sects who occupy parts of the temple and they are constantly bickering over who owns what part and who is disrespecting who or getting in someone's way?

And no one has thought about installing cameras and editing together a reality series??? Fly in Julie Chen to interview the clerics and you've got REALLY, REALLY BIG BROTHER, new this fall on CBS!

AliceB

Posted on Thursday, September 30, 2004 - 09:41 am:

The kicker, of course, is that who gets to settle these fistfights? The israeli police.

A couple of years ago, when a police officer was questioned about having to do this, his response was essentially: "Hey, this is Jerusalem. All the religions bicker."

Dave G.

Posted on Thursday, September 30, 2004 - 10:44 am:

Not any more! Now, each week, the religions get together and vote one sect out of the temple!

"No way, Hannah! The Greek Orthodox church is not crazy! It just came out that way in the editing! Whatever!"

Minz

Posted on Thursday, September 30, 2004 - 12:30 pm:

Oh. My. God. I would _love_ to watch that show. But forget the Hollywood version. Just set up the webcams with translators and let the hijinx begin.

Or Drew Barrymore in ET. But would these interpretations explain the complete absence of mold?

Pizza Nightmare Sufferer

Posted on Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - 04:46 pm:

"But would these interpretations explain the complete absence of mold?"

A warm, dry environment might.

Maybe I should take out my miraculous "Rumsfield" pizza. When I orderd it from Pizza Hut a few years ago, I thought it would be a waste of $10.00. After all, I couldn't very well eat it with that face glaring at me. But I couldn't exactly throw it away, either. Throwing it away might have very dire consequences. If I can get $16,000 for it, though, then maybe it wasn't a waste. Who am I kidding? No one's going to pay $16,000 for a pizza with Rumsfield's face. Anyone want a three year old pizza? I'll pay you $20. Please, take it! It's even in the original box.

a. That someone should think the Virgin Mary's face is in a cheese sandwich? b. That someone would keep it in a plastic bag for a decade on her nightstand? c. That someone would auction it off on the internet? d. That someone would pay $28,000 for it; or e. That the winning bidder is an offshore internet casino that buys advertising space on boxers' backsides

Is there any hope for America?

StephenB

Posted on Tuesday, November 23, 2004 - 06:26 pm:

Well said Dave.

Brian Frost

Posted on Tuesday, November 23, 2004 - 11:39 pm:

I like how this Virgin Mary has a femme fatale look about her.

Bruce Chrumka

Posted on Wednesday, November 24, 2004 - 05:49 am:

And now a guy from Kingston, Ontario is offering on eBay a fishstick with the face of Jesus burned into it. Today's Calgary Herald had a picture...I thought he looked a bit like a young George Orwell. That with the grilled cheese sandwich will just about cover lunch.

Lucius

Posted on Wednesday, November 24, 2004 - 07:35 am:

I'm thinking this could become a cottage industry....

Luís

Posted on Wednesday, November 24, 2004 - 04:06 pm:

Nobody yet thought of selling the toaster that grilled cheese sandwich came from . . . Surely it's been touched by God? Maybe they're using it to mass-produce sandwiches with divine images burned into them.

Dave G.

Posted on Saturday, November 27, 2004 - 01:01 pm:

But why a grilled cheese sandwich? Wouldn't you think that Mary would put her imprimatur on a more healthy, low-fat alternative? Say, watercress, or cottage cheese? And what does this say about any kind of divine guidance to consume dairy products? And could this be used as some kind of justification to condemn kosher dietary laws? The theological implications abound.

As for the Jesus fishstick, those with expertise in scriptural interpretation instantly grasp the link between Jesus and fish symbolism. How appropriate that he should choose to manifest himself in a modern version of fish products, such as, say, a fish stick, or a MacDonald's Filet?

"So why is all this American Jesus art so booty-ass ugly? Is it that our religion is rotten, or our art or both?"

Last I checked it was Europeans who did the art that you admire.

The Protestant early Americans weren't big on fine art as it was considered along the lines of "graven images". And there was that entire rebellion against the corruption of the Catholic church which would also include the cathedrals. So many of the early American protestants were interested in a stripped down style of worship. And they weren't that wealthy either (as opposed to a church/state Rome)...

Well, clearly we've come full circle on that one, with the rise of the "megachurch" and their attendant media empires. The tiny white clapboard chapel in the woods is a thing of the past.

So if American religion has grown an appetite for the big and gaudy, monuments included, why are the aesthetics so deficient?

PM's idea that America divorced spirituality from artistic craft in its early days might hold part of the answer. With no tradition of art as a component of society's glorification of God, maybe the most religious did not go into the arts.

It strikes me that these "monuments" aren't intended as works of art, whose aesthetic appeal lifts the spirit. They are in the American vein of "bigger is better" and function more like billboards or advertisements. "Our Savior can be seen clear from I-28!" "Follow the Savior to the Peace Everlasting Church. Free parking!" They are part of a "quantity or bulk spirituality" that treats souls the way Mickey D's treats patties. You deserve a faith today, so get up and get away, to McWorship....

Some of it is just a lack of any aesthetics when it comes to art. I work for the state of California and I think there was some division or group of people who decided on what was going to be put up as art on the walls. On our floor, we got pictures of vegetable men. I kid you not, little people made of carrots and the like. It's in such poor taste, I never get used to it. They might as well have done a Saturday morning garage sale run.

I think religious monoliths are designed to attract attention toward a product like commercial signage, but, yeah, this is happening against a backdrop of declining cultural standards and aesthetic literacy, and growing hostility toward art and the cult of the artist.

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction; Andy Warhol turned advertising into art and the purveyors of religious sculpture take art and turn it into advertising. In the culture of irony, this is considered not merely permissible, but laudable.

If you ask me, most religious art has always been tacky. True, their were masterpices created during the Rennaisance, but I'm not so sure there aren't masterpeices being done today and we just don't see them for all the tackiness/

and art has become more adversarial. There aren't that many who are willing to go to a museum or an art show to behold art that's intended to piss them off. (Not suggesting that this sort of art shouldn't be created but one has to understand that it's going to have limited appeal if it truly pisses folk off.)

Back in the day, art was intended to knock your socks off. From the peasant to the King everyone could stand in awe (assuming the peasants were allowed in the building)...

Lucius, if you ask me, tackiness was invented during the baroque, with acres of bouncing flesh, swirling draperies and a veritable fly-swarm of rosy-cheeked cherubs mobbing every picture. Rubens was like the Warhol of his era.

A final word: if you ever waste somebody, rob a bank or otherwise need to hide out where no living soul will find you, might I suggest the modern religious art galleries of the Vatican Museums in Vatican City. It would be hard to get up a game of one-on-one basketball there.

I'm not by nature "anti-religious." I was raised a good Catholic boy. Just that lately I've been running across some stuff highlighting the evangelicals, who I think have taken a pretty good message and loused it up, hosing a lot of young kids in the process. That just kind of irks me.

If I grow tiresome, just tell me to shut my piehole.

It is true about the brainwashing, though. Jim Jones used to force his congregation to break down and confess their sins in front of everyone as a mind control technique. There's a scene in JC where they force the kids to do the same thing. It's hard to watch.

Imagine God has spoken to you. He is really ticked off at mankind for wrecking the planet and ignoring his warning about global warming. Another flood is in the offing and you are in charge of building the Human Ark.

You can take 100 people only, who will be responsible for rebuilding the human race.

Who do you take? Geniuses? Athletes? Inventors? Sages? How many men and how many women?

I don't like hypotheticals, but I guess I'd just try to find 100 people who got along with each other. Healthy, for sure. Attractive, but not too attractive. Men and women who were used to hard work. Farmers and such. I wouldn't go the genius route, something I learned playing in bands.

Geniuses and athletes wouldn't be much use...I'd want to have people who knew how to do things. Having people to grow food, hunt, build and repair things, provide first aid would be useful. There's no use saving 100 people if they'll all die later due to lack of food or shelter. Avoid complete nutjobs and try to make sure everyone can get along decently.

I dunno, some discussion of personalities who different people would save, I guess. Maybe the answer is let 'em all drown.

I think Lucius' approach with farmers would make more sense. Hunters would be good, except there won't be anything to hunt for quite a while.

I was thinking about bringing along a handful of older people very learned in sciences, mathematics, architecture, literature, etc. to teach the next generation and keep learning alive.

I guess I was thinking there would be more compartmentalization and specialization, but hey...

My big gripe about Noah's ark is the incestuousness that would attend any repopulation of the earth by Noah's family, but I've been reading that marriage of cousins is not such a bad thing, so maybe the creationists would refute that objection.

The musk ox would be on the other boat. Courtney? Well, there should be some comic relief for the trip.

One of my favorite Jesus cults, the Jehovah's Witnesses, are up in arms in British Columbia due to the provincial government seizing two of four surviving sextuplets born to a JW woman and giving them blood transfusions that were critically necessary for the infant's survival. Naturally, the couple will sue the government, i.e. the taxpayer, for trampling their right to ensure that their children are under a death sentence until they're old enough to authorize their own transfusions if needed.

It is interesting to note that artificial insemination and fertility drugs are A.O.K. to the cult, whereas some whackjob's half-assed interpretation of some mistranslated belch from Leviticus makes transfusions a sin, and this is accepted as gospel. I wonder what Jesus would make of that?

[I probably could've posted this on the hate thread, but what the hell.]

God gave Man reason and intellect and set him apart from the animals not so that he could use that intellect to investigate the world and find cures for makind's problems, but so that he could read and reread a 500-year old book looking for answers.

Personally, I think that you should find a good candidate and start your own Jesus cult up there in the Pac NW. Then, your Jesus could challege Jose de Jesus to a MMA fight for the title of Savior. Now, that's a PPV worth buying.

Is a fairly serious, reverent image of Jesus somehow sacreligious solely because of the material from which it is made? Particularly when it's not a material that is offensive to the senses or an eyesore, but rather, one that is pleasant and beloved by all? Would a Jesus made of bread be sacreligious, even though the church has used bread to signify his body for thousands of years?

I think the sculptor asks some interesting questions about art and faith and how we look at them in our society.

Reading further, it apparently was not the choice of material that upset people, but the fact that Christ was depicted sans loin cloth. Traditionally, the crucified Christ is not depicted nude, although a wooden crucifix attributed to Michelangelo in Santo Spirito in Florence is nude. M also got in trouble for his nude sculpture The Risen Christ and his nude Christ in The Last Judgment fresco, both of which now were loin cloths added after the fact.

Fuck, add a chocolate loincloth. The thing is, that all bs. Catholics, especially the heirarchy, love to have something to get worked up about, partly because it draws attention away from their incessant sodomy.

Beer as reward for bringing back Jesus Statue An Australian beer brewer is rewarding 6 crates of beer to the person who finds the stolen statue of baby Jesus. The statue was stolen from an altar which was established by the South Australian Brewing Company logo South Australian Brewing Company for the upcoming Christmas days. According to the director of the company security cameras caught a man climbing over a fence and framing the statue out of the crib.

“We are worried about the well-being of the baby Jesus and we ask for a quick and safe return”, director Powell said. “We are rewarding 6 crates of beer to the person who brings back the statue. Although the idea of visiting the purgatory should be enough for the thief.”

If you check ebay at any given time there are all kinds of hosers trying to sell something with the image of Jesus on it. I saw someone trying to sell an old door with a stain on it, that was supposed to look like Jesus. I need to find something with "Jesus" on it and put it up for 30k on ebay!